Lucy Letby not charged with further crimes - what does this say about her current convictions

[mids2019]

So no more charges for Lucy Letby currently.

I can't say I am surprised as the tactics the CPS used the first time to secure convictions wont wash. There have been too many questions about the 'expert' evidence in the first trial and in my opinion the CPS don't want to take the risk of trying again with a more possibly more aware jury.

The police seem to be not too happy and probably thought they had similar evidence as they had initially so were taken aback by the CPS decision. They have had to approach parents to say that their children dies either through medical incompetence or through natural causes. The poor parents will now feel distraught and confused being lef up the garden path and the police maybe telling them Lucy was guilty.

I wonder if this is paving the way for a retrial?

I certainly wouldn't state as fact that she hasn't!

I know there are theories in the darker corners of the Internet that Myers crashed her case because he knew her to be guilty, but these fantasies are based on ignorance of the law.

There's obviously a huge amount McDonald doesn't share with the general public. People do like building him up into some fantasy figure, but I've never seen anything in their complaints that isn't just resentment that he's not shutting up about the obvious flaws in the case.

No he did the very best for his client to make sure she had a fair trial. He didn't crash her case-I've not come across anyone who thinks this?! Must be an innocence conspiracy looking to blame her barrister yet again as she got the best representation possible.

So how come her first barrister never acted like MM then?

There's more than one way to approach most things in life

They're different people and they're handling different parts of the legal processes.

Not sure what's so bad about how he's acted anyway.

I'm sure I read yesterday that Mark McDonald won't be her barrister if an appeal is allowed, he's the number 2 and the barrister hasn't been named, can't find it now, is that correct does anyone know?

I have also read that recently but can't for the life of me think where or find it. It was supposed to have been something McDonald said at a recent event (the expert witness conference?)

I couldn't find it either, but asked chatgpt and they said yes it's likely he wouldn't represent her in court because he's not a KC

He does seem to specialise in doing the running on potential miscarriages of justice. As he said in this interview for the Times, "I get the phone call when it's all gone wrong". He obviously came to law from an unconventional background and isn't following a conventional career path.

archive.is/eRJy2

@Oftenaddled
Makes sense that he wouldn't be the lead in court but I suppose I just didn't think about it until I saw it written somewhere.

I think looking at the trailers for the new Letby doc it is the police that have went to the extraordinary step of releasing their staff to give their views that is noteable. This just feels very defensive much in the way the reaction to the abandonment of the new charges was with the police shoring up their own position and reputation.

If the police were utterly confident about their ground and not worried about public perception they would have simply not given footage of the arrest and statements from serving officers (highly staged).

Netflix wouldnt be investing money in an uncontroversial case as at heart they are in the entertainment business. Netflix know there is a huge amount of doubt about the conviction and it looks like a number of experts and lawyers are paying out their doubts.

It is interesting parents are willing to be interviewed and I wonder if they knew their interview would be in the same documentary as that with experts casting doubt on the trial? Do the parents feel they had to add to a documentary about the convictions and did they feel pressure to do so? It reveals some of the torture of the parents involved that they feel they need to speak on this very private subject and they are probably in a state of having to psychologically go through a mantra of 'she is guilty'.

Likewise.

As evidence, the parents have absolutely nothing they can add.

They have been included in the documentary to satisfy modern societies' lamentable desires to see other people's emotions played out in their living rooms. And it will continue to happen as long as people pay for the privilege, which is really what this document is about, earning money for Netflix.

Trying to remain measured in my response to this. They do not need to add any evidence, their babies were the victims of a convicted murderer. It is absolutely their prerogative if they want to share their stories and talk about the impact this has had on them, and it is entirely right that they be listened to in doing so.

Are you saying that it would be equally inappropriate for eg Lin and Megan Russell’s family to do the same? Or the families of the Lockerbie victims?

Did you miss that her post began, ‘As evidence’?

No. Nor did I miss that it went on “They have been included in the documentary to satisfy modern societies’ lamentable desires to see other people’s emotions played out in their living rooms”.

I think we need to question why the grieving families feel they need to speak out and gently ask if anyone pushing them to do so. We were asked to respect the privacy of the bereaved which was fair but then it seems the families now wish to speak out albeit anonymously. It is as if the parents do feel the need to support thr police and judiciary for this conviction.

I'm saying there's too much of this being used a entertainment on television and because of it too many people like Firefly think desperately upset people are some kind of evidence.

Or it’s as if the parents accept the convictions and are fed up (to put it mildly) with the endless questioning in the media and showmanship from Mark McDonald and his experts - including two televised press conferences where their babies’ medical histories and details of their last hours of life were discussed without their permission (and without even enough respect to ensure accuracy in a couple of cases).

There is no question in my
mind why the grieving families might feel they need to speak out.

I don’t think I have seen Firefly suggest that desperately upset people are evidence?

And I don’t get why we are even talking about evidence in the context of this documentary?

She has repeatedly included parents in her lists of evidence.

The journalists who had written articles expressing concerns from experts, along with Mark McDonalds campaign has undoubtedly changed the tone of a lot of these documentaries, but even without that then this story was still always going to be used as entertainment, there still would have been a lot of documentaries about it, and there was reports that Ravi Jayaram was working with someone to create a TV drama about the events, which is now reported to be cancelled because of doubts over the case.

I think the police were expecting a slam dunk withe new charges and I wonder if they would have agreed to rather celebratory interviews if they knew the CPS would respond as it did?

So with the new charges being thrown out there will have to be inquests where the cause of death will be noted as natural or as a result of inappropriate care. This will be a formal finding.

It these parents that have been left in a nightmare limbo with the police zealously believing the babies were murdered yet will be excluded from the Thirwall enquiry and any 'official' record of victims.

It just not look great this with the police either misjudging the evidence or as more likely the CPS now wanting to touch this even an elongated barge pole.